To the Haunted Mountains (Tale of the Nedao Book 1)

by Ru Emerson

She bit her lip hard. The shaman watched her with those red, near-round eyes.

  “You killed many of our kind this night. Also, you took away the one they would have brought here. You take its place.” There was an obscene grace in the movement as he wrapped opposing tentacles around the haft of the knife, held it aloft. A murmur of many whispering voices filled the chamber. The blood drained from her face.

  “I would not attempt it.” Somehow her voice came steady. “I carry the ancient sorceries in my body!”

  “That cannot aid you. It has aided none of those who come here. Those brought to this place die by the knife, as you will.” The chipped blade glittered in the torchlight.

  “Then free my hands and give me my dagger,” she said through suddenly dry lips. “It is not fit that a warrior die so!”

  A strange gurgling noise—the creature was laughing! “No. You are of Nedao, human. Not fit. Any of my people would know shame to fight you.”

  “And those who lie dead above?” But the horror was rising in her again; she caught her lip between her teeth, hard. Do not beg, do not show fear, do not! You shame yourself to no purpose. She lowered her gaze, wished in that instant she had not. At her right hip, a shallow depression had been chipped into the rock. Its interior was dark-stained, dark splash marks surrounded it.

  Round, red eyes stared at her from all sides; she closed her own, commended herself to the Guardians and the Mothers.

  With that, somehow, came a measure of calm. A death such as this—but cleaner than that she had already faced twice over. Better than that her companions might yet face. Grief tugged at her, tightened her throat. To never see them again... Worse, that she could not warn them, could give them no aid—grim purpose pushed that aside. I will take some of these with me when I die, and it will not be like a tame pig with a knife in my throat! So faint a thing—but the Power was stirring, returning sluggishly to life. She formed the words her mother had used upon Koderra's walls at the last. I command the manner of my own death, and that of any within this chamber. It was comfort of a kind.

  Whispering. Those about the fire fed it again; sharp-edged shadows cut along the walls, pressed across the low ceiling. A chanting began somewhere beyond the firepit was spreading, now rising, now fading as some took it up and others ceased. Words she could not understand. But there was no need, the meaning was all too clear.

  “Daughter.” She jumped, jarring her head against the post, stared wildly around the red-lit cavern. Whose voice? No Mathkkra; Power had vibrated through the single word, setting her blood to humming. “Your life is not asked this night. Take your birthright and go from this place!”

  Take my—she could have wept. My birthright! Look to what pass it had already brought me, sword and half-blown Power both! Silence, inner silence, and the sensation was gone, her heart thumped erratically but her blood no longer sang. Foolish hope. No. What I am, she whispered to herself, and what I have, that I shall use, and woe to these who have driven me to such a pass! She felt warily within; relaxed. The Power was her own, as it always had been: weak, useful in its own way. Useful enough now. She withdrew into herself, only vaguely aware that the shaman had risen and cast aside his blood-red robes, that another, bearing a stone bowl, had moved to his side.

  Breathe deeply, for the Power must have calm and assurance to work; believe and you drive out fear. How many times had Scythia spoken those words, how often had Nisana pressed them upon her? Time hesitated; those around her were moving at a dream's slow pace. Calm. One deep breath. Another. Ready. She reached into the center of her strength and drew upon it as she had never dared before.

  And it responded! Her cheeks burned as it surged through her body: so much more than there had ever been, more than she had ever imagined, as though the true Power, unsullied as it had come from the Nasath was filling her inner being, spilling out through her fingertips, her hair, exhaled upon her breath. She vibrated with it. Mine, ah mine!

  Her eyes had misted, suddenly cleared. The shaman stood naked before the dressed stone, holding the black knife in one forelimb. Another stood at his side, a rough stone bowl clasped between two forelimbs. First blood to the gods, she thought, and shivered. But those around her were wrapped in that mesmerizing chant which now echoed through the low chamber; none of them, certainly, were aware of the change in their prisoner. She drew her knees in, braced her back against the post.

  A sudden silence. The fire burned higher, the air itself seemed to have taken on the red that was only the reflection of fire. What was it—something—something foul, something unspeakable. Or—were there only these? No, something had once been here, had left behind a sense of itself that was all too clear to her newly awakened senses. Something worse, much worse, than these—

  A shadow fell between her and the fire: the shaman and his acolyte had reached the sacrifice post. She could not look. One of them caught her plaits, pulled hard; her throat lay open, exposed to the knife poised overhead. In that moment, she acted.

  One low word: the bonds fell from her arms and legs, the knife flew back, clattered to the stone floor and was broken into shards. She knelt, cried aloud as she brought her hands up against those who surged forward. Baelfyr rolled in great balls around the chamber, crackled and danced from the ceiling. Those nearest fell dead, the rest fled in howling terror.

  All save one—for she seized the acolyte, forced her way into his mind and ordered him to lead her forth. He turned blindly, stone dish crashing unnoticed to the rock, scuttled for one of the entrances. Just beyond, she turned back, cried out once more. The ceiling fell in with a roar, trapping within dead and dying alike, shaking the tunnel. Rocks and dirt fell around her, the ground shook.

  She hurried on, urging the guide to greater speeds as the desire for fresh air and clean light became a driving need. Left. Right. Right again. Straight a distance. Another tunnel to the left, and a certainty that Mathkkra fled this way. She shouted out: the ancient words shaped themselves; the entrance collapsed. Moments later she reached familiar ground and struck down her guide. On. On and up.

  She plunged full speed into the darkness of the upper tunnel, sweating and cold at the same time, a sudden sharp pain in her side, her breath coming raggedly. First light was on the trees; the boulders surrounding the entrance were a pale grey. There Marhan, Levren and Golsat waited, swords at the ready. She staggered, spent, into the open, and Lev caught her as she fell.

  She blinked at him. “You—you were coming after me.” He had to bend close to catch the words.

  “Of course. You didn't think we would leave you, did you? We had to see the others were safely bestowed first.” Golsat knelt at her other side, gripped her shoulder. Metal in his free hand glinted red in the light of the newly risen sun. Her sword, her dagger.

  “I found them five paces within the tunnel,” he said. So close. I knew I was close. She stirred, pulled herself to her knees. Marhan reached for her then.

  “Bad?” he demanded, gently. His eyes were darkly worried. She nodded. “You are not injured?” She shook her head. “Swear it?”

  “Swear it. Worn, not hurt.” Difficult to concentrate enough to form the words. “This—Lev, help me up, this place must be closed.”

  He eyed her doubtfully, cast an even more doubtful glance at the slabbed, deep-set rock. “We can try. But—”

  “No. Not that way. Help me up.”

  “Well—” But he pulled to his feet, bringing her up with him. She walked back to the opening easily enough but had to lean against the rock for support. Whispered, then, the words of destruction. The inner ceiling shattered well down into the tunnel. Not the only way. There must be others, find them. Gods, it hurt to think. She shook that off, clutched at harsh rock, probed. There—the Fear. She spoke the words again. And again. Until only a seeming of it remained, as it had in the footprints. Nothing else.

  “Brel. Lisabetha. Did they—are they with the others?”

  Marhan's face was grim. “We moved south again after you
left us, to wait. It would have been folly to come after you when we were spent, senseless to throw away lives if there was no need. The trail led here, we knew where you had gone. And there—there was hope you would win free.” He wrapped an arm around her, led her up the slope.

  “Not long after we came, Brelian staggered forth, leading the girl, and he fell. She is with Malaeth, and has not spoken or ceased weeping since he brought her, but—”

  Ylia gripped his forearm so tightly he winced. “No, he is not dead. Or he wasn't when we came back for you, at least. But—it will not be long. How,” he added furiously, “were we to know he was hurt so?”

  “He would not let us stop him, you know that,” the Bow-master assured him. “Not that it makes things better for us. But—his choice.” She could see the smoke now, among the rocks to the left of the trail.

  “I didn't know myself until too late, do not blame yourselves.” She was short of breath; hard to talk, still, from the events, as much as physical weariness. “Marhan's right. He knew, he accepted the consequences.” She forced a quicker pace; bruised and stiff muscle protested. “Take me to him, if he has not fallen into the last silence, I may be able to save him.” Marhan wasted no time with questions for a change. Levren and Golsat moved out ahead of them, and she wondered at that but was too blank of mind, too concerned with other more important things to pay much heed.

  If I could heal him—I can try. Even if the healing is not mine, I can do him no harm. The Power sang through her inner being.

  Malaeth and Lisabetha sat away from the others; the girl leaned against Malaeth's arm, her eyes closed. Malaeth patted her hair absently, but her attention was for the bundle of rags near the fire. It was with a shock Ylia realized that bundle was Brelian, wrapped in his own cloak and his brother's. Brendan hunched on the ground beside him.

  She knelt. The boy's face was white and cold, his eyes were closed, brow puckered with the pain he had denied in the tunnels. Brendan looked up; his face was haggard, his eyes red. Chilled fingers caught at her arm. She pulled the coverings away, laid a hand against Brelian's throat. The pulse was rapid, weak, like his breath. She probed the wound with a delicate mind-touch. Not deep, no. But he had lost too much blood: his desperate rescue of Lisabetha might well have cost all he had to give.

  “Brendan.” She touched his hand where it still clutched her arm. He gazed at her blankly. “Go and bring me water, and then leave me. I will need quiet if I am to try to save him.”

  “You—” Sudden hope brought him to his feet.

  If I fail now... She didn't dare think it. “I will try. I don't know what I can do. I'll try.”

  He swallowed tightly, walked as though this was the first he had stood in long, cold hours. But as he went around the fire, he passed the women and he stopped to look down at Lisabetha. Unwillingly, she gazed up, shrank from what she saw in his face.

  “You.” His voice was flat. “Unworthy as ye are, for all your great House, my brother looked upon ye as the only woman in his world. And ye would none of him. Well.” He drew a deep, shuddering breath. “See where he lies!” More he would undoubtedly have said, but he choked and turned hastily away. Lisabetha hid her face in her hands, and her shoulders shook.

  Brendan returned the other way around the fire, and would have dropped back to the place he had held. But Ylia took his hand, willed him a measure of calm. “Go, Brendan. Keep lookout for us. If I can save him, by the Mothers I swear I will.” At first she thought he hadn't heard; he gazed blankly between her and his brother, his lips moving. Then he turned, suddenly, and strode hurriedly away.

  She sat back on her heels, put the water aside, studied the dying Brelian. Once—once only had she seen anyone attempt the healing of one so far gone—and Gors died anyway. She closed her eyes, then, laid both hands on the boy's brow, withdrew into her new strength.

  The words—those, at least, she knew. Silence, total, inner silence. Focus Power through the hands: there was a sudden warmth in her fingers. Her pulse quickened. ‘Shhh. Shhh.’ Silence all triumph; silence, too, the inner speech that distracts. Light filled her; the warmth spread up her arms.

  All at once, she knew what to do. Mother was right, Nisana was. They'd told her how, patiently instructed, put aside her protests she'd never have use or need. She was smiling as she traced the sign of healing over Brelian, willed strength back into his body, felt it knit under her fingers, traced the wound lightly as skin and muscle rejoined. A scar he might have, yes, but even that impossibly faint. Nothing worse. A deep inner peace washed through her, the body under her hands stirred as Brelian drew a deep, even breath. Another.

  She blinked. There was already color back in his thin face. Brendan approached hesitantly, caught at her hands as she stood. “It's all right, he'll live, Bren. He will sleep a while, that is all.” He drew a ragged breath and fell to his knees at his brother's side. Tears ran down his face.

  A gift and a talent, the Power, so they tell us; a thing which must be constantly used, or lost. Or, at the very least, a thing which, if infrequently used, takes dangerous amounts of one's strength. As I well knew; had I not so instructed Scythia in her time, my own young Ylia? Embarrassing, to say the least, that I proved unable to act as I taught.

  16

  Ylia sat for a long time, staring blankly into the tiny fire; they all did. We look like death. Her clothes were matted with dirt from the tunnel, stiff with sweat; hair stuck to her cheeks, strands of it wrapped around her arm: one of her plaits had come unbound somewhere during the night. The men were all unshaven and unkempt; Lisabetha's hair had fallen from its high crown of braiding, her face was black-smudged, streaked; Malaeth's eyes were dark and heavy-lidded, her face slackly pale. Levren's cloak was torn across the shoulder, there was dried blood on his upper arm. He limped. Marhan's sleeve was sliced from shoulder to cuff, and the creases around his eyes and mouth were deep shadows in the morning light. Even Brendan looked as though he had rolled in mud, his dark red-brown hair and beard were tangled wildly together. Golsat stared at the rock ledge, toyed absently with the obsidian dagger; a long, ugly cut ran down his temple, blood matted his beard and had spilled in thin dribbles onto his shirt.

  They were near to collapse, every one of them. But they dared not stay where they were, even if any of them had wished to. For the moment, though, no one had the energy to move, to begin the preparations that would lead to their going on.

  Ylia tested their surroundings cautiously. The Fear was gone, save for that vaporish holdover among the rocks. But that meant nothing—it had hidden from her before, likely it could still do so. “We had better move on, soon.” She formed the words, could not put sound behind them.

  Only luck or the will of the Mothers themselves had spared the company from complete disaster this time; another such incident might prove their undoing. But—no, she dared not count upon the new strength that danced through her veins, even though it clasped her inner being as Nisana's fur fit her body.

  “Swordmaster.” Golsat thrust the Mathkkra knife into his jerkin. Marhan roused himself. “We surely do not wish to spend another night here?”

  “If I must carry Lisabetha myself, I will not see the sun set from the ledge again!” Malaeth declared fervently. Marhan studied Brendan, who had not moved from his brother's side.

  “The lad will mend?” he asked. His voice was pitched low, even though Brendan looked unlikely to hear at all. “You are certain?”

  “He is healed, Marhan,” Ylia replied, as softly. “It will do no harm if he is carried from here. He sleeps, that is all, and will sleep for some time. To regain his strength.”

  Marhan studied them one after another, measuringly. “All right. Lev. Golsat. If we carry Brel on his cloak—what do you think, can we?” Levren nodded, rose slowly, frowned as he put weight on his left leg. Ylia scattered the fire and struggled to her feet; aching bone and muscle protested fiercely. She drew Nisana's pouch, with its still-sleeping cargo, over her head, took sword in hand.
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  Brendan and Levren each took a lead corner of Brelian's cloak, Marhan and Golsat the other two, and they started off slowly. Malaeth was stiff, unsteady: cold and lack of sleep had left her weak and ill. Lisabetha held to her feet grimly and was walking unaided, though her eyes were vague and she seemed to take in little of what happened around her. Ylia came up to wrap a supporting arm around her old nurse as they moved out.

  A slow journey, but uneventful and already warm. ‘Cat?’ Silence. Nisana was still sunk far into herself.

  The ravine down to the valley sloped gently and they emerged at length onto a springy carpeting of thick grasses and yellow bellflower. The stream that ran down the canyon had a tributary here—nearly a river—that flowed down the long, narrow valley before turning sharply against the base of the bluff and dropped down to join the torrent below.

  The men deposited Brelian in the sun; Golsat and Levren set out separately for meat while Marhan built a fire. But Brendan would not leave his brother's side—and Lisabetha gazed at them.

  She turned as Ylia came up behind her. “He will live, Lady? This truly?” Icy fingers gripped at the swordswoman's arm. “This is not—is not just a thing you have said?”

  “He will live, Lisabetha.” Lisabetha closed her eyes; she was beginning to shake; Ylia caught her by the shoulders, drew her away from the camp. Next to the water there were large boulders, already warm. The heat felt good against her back. “I would not have said it for Brendan's heart's ease. Such a tale would be quickly proven false and cause greater pain than the truth. Also,” she added sharply, “I do not lie to any man, nor to any woman either!” The girl met her eyes very briefly indeed, turned to a study of her fingers.

  “I—I know.” She swallowed tightly. “I—no; I did know.” Her words suddenly came in a rush. “I—when I first came to Koderra, I knew so little of you, I had seen the Queen three times, just to meet and give courtesy to, when she came to Teshmor, and you only once—at tourney—but—” She swallowed again. “But—but what I believed, what they said of you—”